Undoubtedly, these cuts are unfortunate news for riders throughout Seattle. If necessary funding is not brought back soon, many routes will see losses in frequency and many others will be slashed altogether. Getting around Seattle efficiently will become harder in many ways.
However, I believe that there is optimism in this generally bad news. These cuts will allow Metro to cut infrequent, duplicative and low-ridership routes that they would normally have trouble deleting. Routes such as the 25 which barely run at all and have ridiculously low ridership might finally see their end.
I also see this as a way for Metro to increase efficiency on current buses and improve their routing. The useless end of the 14 or the annoying, time-wasting detour of the 8 to 23rd Avenue in the Central District are both excellent examples of small but noticeable contributions to improving the system.
The real question here is whether Metro will use these cuts as a lesson or an incentive to improve parts of their network. They could just delete and reduce frequencies on many routes, or they could reduce doing so by fixing or suppressing parts of them.
The real question here is whether Metro will use these cuts as a lesson or an incentive to improve parts of their network. They could just delete and reduce frequencies on many routes, or they could reduce doing so by fixing or suppressing parts of them.